Woman faces jail over cannabis plants

A ST Paul’s woman could be jailed after allowing a drug dealer to grow cannabis in her secret basement.

Karen Monfries, 46, admitted producing cannabis on the basis that she was allowing her property on Denbigh Street to be used in exchange for writing off an £800 debt.

Prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, Susan Cavender said police executed a warrant last November 29 and under a rug, below the stairs, they found a door to the basement.

There were 53 cannabis plants of varying sizes growing in two rooms, which experts calculated could have been sold on the street for between £16,000 and £19,000. Also seized from the house were three mobile phones, £200 in cash, a set of weighing scales and 20g of cannabis, worth £150-200.

Mitigating, Rodney Wilson said on the day of the raid Monfries was phoned by a man who ordered her to tell police the drugs were for her personal use, which she did, two weeks later in interview.

It was not until her pre-sentence report with probation that she came clean and admitted she had agreed to house the cannabis to write off a debt. Monfries admitted she was given some cannabis, which she used for medicinal purposes to relieve some of her health problems, but she did not name anyone else in the operation.